​HERBELOT DE MOLAINVILLE, BARTHÉLEMY D’ (1625–1695),
French orientalist, was born on the 14th of December
1625 at Paris. He was educated at the university of Paris,
and devoted himself to the study of oriental languages, going
to Italy to perfect himself in them by converse with the orientals
who frequented its sea-ports. There he also made the acquaintance
of Holstenius, the Dutch humanist (1596–1661), and Leo
Allatius, the Greek scholar (1586–1669). On his return to
France after a year and a half, he was received into the house
of Fouquet, superintendent of finance, who gave him a pension
of 1500 livres. Losing this on the disgrace of Fouquet in 1661,
he was appointed secretary and interpreter of Eastern languages
to the king. A few years later he again visited Italy, when the
grand-duke Ferdinand II. of Tuscany presented him with a
large number of valuable Oriental MSS., and tried to attach him
to his court. Herbelot, however, was recalled to France by
Colbert, and received from the king a pension equal to the one
he had lost. In 1692 he succeeded D’Auvergne in the chair of
Syriac, in the Collège de France. He died in Paris on the 8th
of December 1695. His great work is the Bibliothèque orientale,ou dictionnaire universel contenant tout ce qui regarde la connaissancedes peuples de l’Orient, which occupied him nearly all his
life, and was completed in 1697 by A. Galland. It is based
on the immense Arabic dictionary of Hadji Khalfa, of which
indeed it is largely an abridged translation, but it also contains
the substance of a vast number of other Arabic and Turkish
compilations and manuscripts.

The Bibliothèque was reprinted at Maestricht (fol. 1776), and at the
Hague (4 vols. 4to, 1777–1799). The latter edition is enriched with
the contributions of the Dutch orientalist Schultens, Johann Jakob
Reiske (1716–1774), and by a supplement provided by Visdelow
and Galland. Herbelot’s other works, none of which have been
published, comprise an Oriental Anthology, and an Arabic, Persian,Turkish and Latin Dictionary.